There are so many activities you can do with items you throw away. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Plastic bottles:
- Take plastic soda or water bottles and cut the top half off. After cleaning and drying them, they make a great funnel. Use the funnel in your sand table, sensory bean/rice bucket, or in the water table.
- Small plastic water bottles, are great for salt art. Make you salt or sand art in these small bottles. You can glue fins on and make fish.
- Make instruments out of water or soda bottles. Place some beans or sand inside and make maracas. Use two empty bottles for drum sticks.
- Shampoo or body wash bottles are perfect for water play. Who needs a water gun? Fill them up and start a water fight!
Newspaper and Magazines
- Cut, Cut, Cut- Don’t throw out your newspapers, have your children practice cutting. Make a collage of animals, plants, words, or feelings. Have your child flip through your old magazines and cut out the pictures. You can also have them search for certain letters or numbers. Give them a list of words that they have to find or they can find the letters to spell the word.
- Do you have younger children that aren’t ready for cutting? Give them some paper and ask them to rip it. They will have so much fun and work on bilateral coordination all at the same time.
- Make a scarecrow- more of a fall activity, I know, but your children can scrunch the paper into balls and stuff shirts, pants, and a pillowcase for a head. Then put him together.
- And don’t forget you can always use newspaper/magazines to help save your table when your children paint or do other messy projects.
